Preemie Josie Duggar Comes Home from Hospital

The Duggars are finally bringing their micropremie Josie Brooklyn home from the hospital, four months after she was born premature and put in intensive care.

“We’re grateful for the prayers of thousands,” dad Jim Bob Duggar tells People as he walked out of Arkansas Children’s Hospital with wife Michelle and their 19th child on Tuesday.

“We are so happy,” says the busy mom. “We are so excited, we are running on adrenaline. I have been getting into the routine of every three hours feeding, diapering and taking her temperature. We are so encouraged that she is doing so well.”

It was a roller-coaster ride for the Duggar clan of TLC’s ‘19 and Counting,’ after Baby Duggar was born via emergency C-section on Dec. 10 after only 25 weeks of gestation. But the Duggars and their doctors remained optimistic.

Now, Josie is eating well and weighs 4lbs. 9oz. – a drastic improvement from the mere 1lb. 6oz. she weighed at birth.

Despite her progress, the ever-expanding family plans to take extra precautions with Josie.

The youngest kids in the clan – Jackson, 5, Johanna, 4, Jennifer, 2, and Jordyn, 15 months – “are jumping up and down that they will finally get to meet their baby sister,” says Michelle. But they’ll have to be careful. “The little ones will have to be careful with slobbery kisses to prevent any colds and sniffles,” the mom adds.

Fans of the hit TLC show ’19 Kids and Counting’ can catch Josie’s hospital departure when the episode, ‘Josie Comes Home,’ airs Sunday, May 9, on TLC.